Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R) and Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee has spoken out against President Donald Trump’s (R) recent decision to cancel $5 billion worth of Congressionally approved spending with a “pocket rescission.”
This move represents a rare use of the rescission process, which typically allows the president to request that Congress cancel previously approved federal funding and to withhold the money for 45 days while lawmakers decide whether or not to act.
Because there are less than 45 days until the end of the fiscal year, the President’s plan to claw back billions in federal funding will effectively be implemented regardless of whether or not Congress approves of it.
According to the New York Post, such a move has not been made by a president in nearly 50 years.
About a week and a half ago, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals denied a rehearing en banc in a case against the Trump Administration filed by the Global Health Council, solidifying a mid-August decision rolling back an injunction that prevented the Administration from freezing certain federal funding.
This opened the door for the President to move forward with his “pocket rescission,” which primarily seeks to halt the distribution of funds to various foreign aid projects that have been deemed wasteful by the Administration.
[RELATED: President Donald Trump Signs Bill Eliminating $9 Billion of Previously-Approved Federal Spending]
The New York Post’s exclusive report outlines several of these line items, including $24.6 million for “climate resilience” in Honduras, $2.7 million for the South African Democracy Works Foundation, and $3.9 million to promote democracy among LGBT people in the Western Balkans.
Other money being held by the Trump Administration as part of the nearly $5 billion rescission package includes $838 million in peacekeeping funds, some of which were intended to be used to support United Nations peacekeeping forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
Other examples of the proposed peacekeeping cuts include $11 million to provide Uruguay’s military with armored personnel carriers, $4 million for a training center in Zambia, and $3 million for barracks to house Kazakhstani peacekeepers.
The New York Post reported that the recessions will not affect US support for the Multinational Force and Observers peacekeeping mission along the Egyptian-Israeli border.
While some have criticized the President’s “pocket rescission” as an illegal usurpation of Congress’ power of the purse, others have argued that it is an appropriate exercise of the authority granted to the chief executive in the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) of 1974.
It is under the ICA that presidents are granted the ability to make a rescission request, outlining the full procedure for doing so, including the 45-day withholding period.
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought and General Counsel Mark Paoletta have pointed out that Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter have both arguably made pocket rescissions.
“Carter sent several rescission proposals to Congress in July of 1977. Funds from two of those proposals lapsed on September 30, 1977, in one case prior to the expiration of the 45-day ICA withholding period, and in another case five days after the withholding period ended,” Paoletta wrote in a 2018 letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
In a lengthy post on X, Paoletta cited a 1975 opinion from the GAO that appears to recognize the validity of “pocket rescissions” by urging lawmakers to fix this provision because it represents “a major deficiency in the Impoundment Control Act.”
“We believe Congress should have the affirmative means within the Act to handle rescissions…[including]…changing the Act to prevent funds from lapsing where the 45-day period has not expired,” Paoletta quoted the report as saying.
Despite this recommendation, Paoletta points out that Congress did not amend this part of the IRA, leaving the language he believes authorizes the president to issue a “pocket rescission.”
He further highlights that bills specifically aimed at preventing “pocket rescissions” were introduced and failed to pass in 2020, 2021, and 2023.
“GAO reversed its position of 43 years simply out of a desire to thwart President Trump’s agenda,” Paoletta wrote. “It’s driven by Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
The New York Post suggests in their original reporting on this issue that the GAO is “uniquely positioned” to sue the Trump Administration of its use of the “pocket rescission” — particularly since the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has just ruled that private litigants cannot seek to enforce the IRA — but its unclear if they will go down this path.
Maine’s Sen. Collins is among the lawmakers criticizing President Trump for attempting to invoke a “pocket rescission.”
“I was disappointed more than surprised, because it clearly is an end-run around Congress,” Collins said according to NBC News, referring to the move as “a clear violation of the law.”
“We are looking at the options,” she told reporters. “Our chief counsel on the committee is going through the law and looking at what happened when Jimmy Carter, President Carter, tried this, and coming up with some options for us to look at.”
Collins also shared an official statement regarding the move on the Senate Appropriations Committee website.
“Congress has received from the Administration a $4.9 billion package of proposed rescissions of funding that had been previously appropriated for a wide range of foreign aid programs,” she wrote. “Given that this package was sent to Congress very close to the end of the fiscal year when the funds are scheduled to expire, this is an apparent attempt to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval.”
“GAO has concluded that this type of rescission is unlawful and not permitted by the Impoundment Control Act,” she continued. “Article I of the Constitution makes clear that Congress has the responsibility for the power of the purse. Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”
“Instead of this attempt to undermine the law, the appropriate way is to identify ways to reduce excessive spending through the bipartisan, annual appropriations process,” Collins wrote. “Congress approves rescissions regularly as part of this process.”
“In fact, the year-long funding bill that we are currently operating under includes 70 rescissions,” she said. “This month, the Appropriations Committee intends to markup the Fiscal Year 2026 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs bill. The annual funding bill is the most appropriate way to ensure that any rescissions reflect the views of Congress.”
Earlier this summer, Collins voted against the first rescission package sent to Congress by the President. Despite joining her Republican colleagues in voting to allow the bill to proceed in the legislative process, she ultimately joined the Democrats in rejecting the plan.
Although Collins is joined by a number of other Republican in her skepticism of this latest move to pull back government spending, others in her party are supportive of the President’s efforts.
“We’ve got $37 trillion in debt, and all the people screaming at the administration for breaching separation of power are missing the point,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who serves on the Appropriations Committee with Collins. “The point is, we need to reduce spending.”
Also criticizing the President, however, are a number of Democratic lawmakers, including prominent members of the party.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) accused Trump in a letter to colleagues of “waging an all-out war against Congress’s Article I authority and the constitutional balance of power.”
“Senate Republicans must decide: stand up for the legislative branch or enable Trump’s slide toward authoritarianism,” he said.
